The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-07-09
Compiled for The Arkansde TrareIer. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

SClENI1F1C MISCELLANY.
 The eggs of a single sturgeon.
 counted by Frank Buckland. num-
 bered 921 GOO and weighed forty five
 pounds.
 One of the glaciers of the Kinchin- junga, peak whose summit is 2S,OO0 feet above sea level, has a vertical
 height of 14.000 feet.
 The Bo tree of Amarapoora. in
 Burmah, is about 2,17O years old, and
 it can be traced in historic documents
 as far back as 1S2 A. D. Other trees
 are believed to be older, African and
 Californian specimens being computed
 at 5000 years, but there is DO certain
 evidence of it.
 RAPTDITY OF TREE GROwTH.-Cul-
 tivated in groves, the average growth
 in twelve years of several varieties of
 hard wood has been ascertained to be
 about as follows: White maple reaches
 foot in diameter and 30 feet in height; ash, leaf maple or box elder, foot in
 diameter and 20 feet in height; white
 willow, Is inches and 40 feet; yellow
 willow, Is inches and B feet: Lom-
 bardy poplar, 10 inches and 40 feet:
 blue and white ash, 10 inches and
 twenty-five feet; black walnut and
 butternut, 10 inches and 20 feet.
 ANTIQUITY OF ROPEs.-Before the
 beginning of the historical period, considerable skill in rope making had
 been acquired, so that it must be classed among the oldest of the arts. The existing relics of the ancient Egyptians include sculptures showing the process of manufacture practiced more than 4,000 years ago, while the oldest records of that people repre- sent wellmade ropes of great strength. Flax and the flores of the date tree were employed for these ropes, but grasses and the hides of animals were probably among the first materials used.
 ANIMAL HEAT.-In the animals en- dowed with the most perfect respira- tory organs the bodily heat remains uniform through all changes of tem- perature of the surrounding medium. Respiration is more active in birds than in any other class of animals, and their temperature is uniformly higher than any other, ranging from 106 to 112 degrees Fahrenheit. In the man. malia it is from 95 to 1O5 degrees. varying for adult man, in different in- divuals, from 9S to 100 degrees. During levers it is several degrees higher, reaching 106 or 107 degrees in scarlet and typhus levers, while in other forms of disease it falls a little below the normal, descending to 66 degrees in a remarkable case not long ago reported. In health it is about degree and half lower during sleep than when awake, and it is some de grees higher in the very young than in the very old. In the reptiles. fishes and all so-called cold -blooded animals the temperature of the body IS very little above that of the sur rounding air or water, rising or fall ing with the external changes.
 COMMON MYTHs.-Ignorant folk. and even scientific observers have disseminated many er- roneous and exaggerated notions which are not readily eradicated. We are still told, for instance, of the maelstrom, a frightful whirling chasm in the sea capable of sucking down the largest ships, though in reality this fearful "whirl- pool" is simply run of the tide through sloping channel, is rarely and then chiefly on &C., count of the rocks on which it may draw vessels. Sir John Herschel gave his endorsement to the statement that stars may be seen in the daytime from the bottom of a well, but this has been proven to be an error by tests from shaft nearly half mile deep. Mir. John Murdoch has recently shown that the Eskimos do not. AS textbooks of physiology affirm, doze through their long winter night. keeping up their bodily heat by enormous meals of raw blubber and lamp-oil, but that their winter life is active, their food mostly cooked and their consumption of oil not exces- slve. A still widely accepted belief is that the hair-snake is a wonderful of horses hair when kept in water, though these odd crea- lures (known to science as Goydius 1qudftcms really grow from eggs, and in early stages inhabit the bodies of insects. A very old idea, without in fact, is that crocodiles shed mournful tears, while stories of toads imprisoned in solid rock are numerous and supported by much evidence, but have probably resulted rom imperfect observation. Accounts 'f the germination of grain from the of Egypt have arisen rom deception practiced by the rabG in placino fr0ch aooJu ry;+l <ha